MUMBAI: The country's largest software exporter, TCS, announced on Monday that it will hire over 1.25 lakh employees in FY24, despite reporting a slight decline in its overall workforce for the December 2022 quarter, a multi-year first.
Between October and December, the software company's employee base decreased by 2,197 to 6.13 lakh.
The Tata Group, on the other hand, made it abundantly clear that this was not caused by the current state of demand but rather by the increased hiring that had taken place over the past 18 months.
"... if you look at our overall hiring patterns, we are probably continuing to hire at the same level." Next year, we should hire between 1,25,000 and 1,50,000 people. Rajesh Gopinathan, the company's chief executive officer and managing director, stated to reporters, "It's an ongoing confidence in the medium-term, long-term view that we have."
"We are completely engaged and fully present, our posture is positive, and we are not distracting anyone from the field. From the point of view of talent capacity, we are completely invested. We benefited from our overinvestment last year (this quarter)," he added.
It should be noted that, despite reporting a net decrease of 2,197 employees in the December quarter, it added 1.03 lakh employees to its overall workforce in FY22 and has already hired over 55,000 employees in FY23.
Milind Lakkad, the chief human resources officer of the company, said that the decline in the December quarter was caused by attrition, which was trending higher than new hires.
He stated that it has hired 42,000 new employees so far in FY23. This means that, compared to the 35,000 hired in the first half, it only hired about 7,000 employees in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, it might hire a few thousand more people or it might not do anything.
The head of human resources also made it clear that the company will continue to hire about 40,000 freshers in FY24 and that over 5 lakh young people have applied to be hired.
He made it abundantly clear that the decrease in number is primarily attributable to the higher hiring rates in the past and is not due to the demand environment.
For the December quarter, IT services attrition was 21.3%, and Gopinathan stated that the same has peaked and that the company anticipates a downward trend.
According to N Ganapathy Subramaniam, the company's chief operating officer, 1.25 lakh employees have been with the company for more than a decade. Subramaniam referred to them as the fulcrum, which ensures that contracted services are delivered on time.